The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Jimmy turned pale. He forgot about the disk and the mushrooming water spout. When he shut his eyes he saw only a red haze overhanging the river, and a shantyboat nosing out of the cypresses, its windows spitting death.

  * * * *

  Jimmy knew that the Harmons had waited a long time for an excuse. The Harmons were law-respecting river rats with sharp teeth. Feuding wasn’t lawful, but murder could be made lawful by whittling down a lie until it looked as sharp as the truth.

  The Harmon brothers would do their whittling down with double-barreled shotguns. It was easy enough to make murder look like a lawful crime if you could point to a body covered by a blanket and say, “We caught him stealing our fish! He was a-goin’ to kill us―so we got him first.”

  No one would think of lifting the blanket and asking Uncle Al about it. A man lying stiff and still under a blanket could no more make himself heard than a river cat frozen in the ice.

  “Git inside, young ‘uns. Here they come!”

  Jimmy’s heart skipped a beat. Down the river in the sunlight a shantyboat was drifting. Jimmy could see the Harmon brothers crouching on the deck, their faces livid with hate, sunlight glinting on their arm-cradled shotguns.

  The Harmon brothers were not in the least alike. Jed Harmon was tall and gaunt, his right cheek puckered by a knife scar, his cruel, thin-lipped mouth snagged by his teeth. Joe Harmon was small and stout, a little round man with bushy eyebrows and the flabby face of a cottonmouth snake.

  “Go inside, Pigtail,” Jimmy said, calmly. “I’m a-going to stay and fight!”

  Uncle Al grabbed Jimmy’s arm and swung him around. “You heard what I said, young fella. Now git!”

  “I want to stay here and fight with you, Uncle Al,” Jimmy said.

  “Have you got a gun? Do you want to be blown apart, young fella?”

  “I’m not scared, Uncle Al,” Jimmy pleaded. “You might get wounded. I know how to shoot straight, Uncle Al. If you get hurt I’ll go right on fighting!”

  “No you won’t, young fella! Take Pigtail inside. You hear me? You want me to take you across my knee and beat the livin’ stuffings out of you?”

  Silence.

  Deep in his uncle’s face Jimmy saw an anger he couldn’t buck. Grabbing Pigtail Anne by the arm, he propelled her across the deck and into the dismal front room of the shantyboat.

  The instant he released her she glared at him and stamped her foot. “If Uncle Al gets shot it’ll be your fault,” she said cruelly. Then Pigtail’s anger really flared up.

  “The Harmons wouldn’t dare shoot us ‘cause we’re children!”

  For an instant brief as a dropped heartbeat Jimmy stared at his sister with unconcealed admiration.

  “You can be right smart when you’ve got nothing else on your mind, Pigtail,” he said. “If they kill me they’ll hang sure as shooting!”

  Jimmy was out in the sunlight again before Pigtail could make a grab for him.

  Out on the deck and running along the deck toward Uncle Al. He was still running when the first blast came.

  It didn’t sound like a shotgun blast. The deck shook and a big swirl of smoke floated straight toward Jimmy, half blinding him and blotting Uncle Al from view.

  When the smoke cleared Jimmy could see the Harmon shantyboat. It was less than thirty feet away now, drifting straight past and rocking with the tide like a topheavy flatbarge.

  On the deck Jed Harmon was crouching down, his gaunt face split in a triumphant smirk. Beside him Joe Harmon stood quivering like a mound of jelly, a stick of dynamite in his hand, his flabby face looking almost gentle in the slanting sunlight.

  There was a little square box at Jed Harmon’s feet. As Joe pitched Jed reached into the box for another dynamite stick. Jed was passing the sticks along to his brother, depending on wad dynamite to silence Uncle Al forever.

  Wildly Jimmy told himself that the guns had been just a trick to mix Uncle Al up, and keep him from shooting until they had him where they wanted him.

  Uncle Al was shooting now, his face as grim as death. His big heavy gun was leaping about like mad, almost hurling him to the deck.

  Jimmy saw the second dynamite stick spinning through the air, but he never saw it come down. All he could see was the smoke and the shantyboat rocking, and another terrible splintering crash as he went plunging into the river from the end of a rising plank, a sob strangling in his throat.

  Jimmy struggled up from the river with the long leg-thrusts of a terrified bullfrog, his head a throbbing ache. As he swam shoreward he could see the cypresses on the opposite bank, dark against the sun, and something that looked like the roof of a house with water washing over it.

  Then, with mud sucking at his heels, Jimmy was clinging to a slippery bank and staring out across the river, shading his eyes against the glare.

  Jimmy thought, “I’m dreaming! I’ll wake up and see Uncle Joe blowing on a vinegar jug. I’ll see Pigtail, too. Uncle Al will be sitting on the deck, taking it easy!”

  But Uncle Al wasn’t sitting on the deck. There was no deck for Uncle Al to sit upon. Just the top of the shantyboat, sinking lower and lower, and Uncle Al swimming.

  Uncle Al had his arm around Pigtail, and Jimmy could see Pigtail’s white face bobbing up and down as Uncle Al breasted the tide with his strong right arm.

  Closer to the bend was the Harmon shantyboat. The Harmons were using their shotguns now, blasting fiercely away at Uncle Al and Pigtail. Jimmy could see the smoke curling up from the leaping guns and the water jumping up and down in little spurts all about Uncle Al.

  There was an awful hollow agony in Jimmy’s chest as he stared, a fear that was partly a soundless screaming and partly a vision of Uncle Al sinking down through the dark water and turning it red.

  It was strange, though. Something was happening to Jimmy, nibbling away at the outer edges of the fear like a big, hungry river cat. Making the fear seem less swollen and awful, shredding it away in little flakes.

  There was a white core of anger in Jimmy which seemed suddenly to blaze up.

  He shut his eyes tight.

  In his mind’s gaze Jimmy saw himself holding the Harmon brothers up by their long, mottled legs. The Harmon brothers were frogs. Not friendly, good natured frogs like Uncle Al, but snake frogs. Cottonmouth frogs.

  All flannel red were their mouths, and they had long evil fangs which dripped poison in the sunlight. But Jimmy wasn’t afraid of them no-ways. Not any more. He had too firm a grip on their legs.

  “Don’t let anything happen to Uncle Al and Pigtail!” Jimmy whispered, as though he were talking to himself. No―not exactly to himself. To someone like himself, only larger. Very close to Jimmy, but larger, more powerful.

  “Catch them before they harm Uncle Al! Hurry! Hurry!”

  There was a strange lifting sensation in Jimmy’s chest now. As though he could shake the river if he tried hard enough, tilt it, send it swirling in great thunderous white surges clear down to Lake Pontchartrain.

  * * * *

  But Jimmy didn’t want to tilt the river. Not with Uncle Al on it and Pigtail, and all those people in New Orleans who would disappear right off the streets. They were frogs too, maybe, but good frogs. Not like the Harmon brothers.

  Jimmy had a funny picture of himself much younger than he was. Jimmy saw himself as a great husky baby, standing in the middle of the river and blowing on it with all his might. The waves rose and rose, and Jimmy’s cheeks swelled out and the river kept getting angrier.

  No―he must fight that.

  “Save Uncle Al!” he whispered fiercely. “Just save him―and Pigtail!”

  It began to happen the instant Jimmy opened his eyes. Around the bend in the sunlight came a great spinning disk, wrapped in a fiery glow.

  Straight toward the Harmon shantyboat the disk swept, water spurting up all about it, its bottom fifty feet wide. There was no collision. Only a brightness for one awful instant where the shantyboat was twisting and turning in the current, a bri
ghtness that outshone the rising sun.

  Just like a camera flashbulb going off, but bigger, brighter. So big and bright that Jimmy could see the faces of the Harmon brothers fifty times as large as life, shriveling and disappearing in a magnifying burst of flame high above the cypress trees. Just as though a giant in the sky had trained a big burning glass on the Harmon brothers and whipped it back quick.

  Whipped it straight up, so that the faces would grow huge before dissolving as a warning to all snakes. There was an evil anguish in the dissolving faces which made Jimmy’s blood run cold. Then the disk was alone in the middle of the river, spinning around and around, the shantyboat swallowed up.

  And Uncle Al was still swimming, fearfully close to it.

  The net came swirling out of the disk over Uncle Al like a great, dew-drenched gossamer web. It enmeshed him as he swam, so gently that he hardly seemed to struggle or even to be aware of what was happening to him.

  Pigtail didn’t resist, either. She simply stopped thrashing in Uncle Al’s arms, as though a great wonder had come upon her.

  Slowly Uncle Al and Pigtail were drawn into the disk. Jimmy could see Uncle Al reclining in the web, with Pigtail in the crook of his arm, his long, angular body as quiet as a butterfly in its deep winter sleep inside a swaying glass cocoon.

  Uncle Al and Pigtail, being drawn together into the disk as Jimmy stared, a dull pounding in his chest. After a moment the pounding subsided and a silence settled down over the river.

  Jimmy sucked in his breath. The voices began quietly, as though they had been waiting for a long time to speak to Jimmy deep inside his head, and didn’t want to frighten him in any way.

  “Take it easy, Jimmy! Stay where you are. We’re just going to have a friendly little talk with Uncle Al.”

  “A t-talk?” Jimmy heard himself stammering.

  “We knew we’d find you where life flows simply and serenely, Jimmy. Your parents took care of that before they left you with Uncle Al.

  “You see, Jimmy, we wanted you to study the Earth people on a great, wide flowing river, far from the cruel, twisted places. To grow up with them, Jimmy―and to understand them. Especially the Uncle Als. For Uncle Al is unspoiled, Jimmy. If there’s any hope at all for Earth as we guide and watch it, that hope burns most brightly in the Uncle Als!”

  The voice paused, then went on quickly. “You see, Jimmy, you’re not human in the same way that your sister is human―or Uncle Al. But you’re still young enough to feel human, and we want you to feel human, Jimmy.”

  “W―Who are you?” Jimmy gasped.

  “We are the Shining Ones, Jimmy! For wide wastes of years we have cruised Earth’s skies, almost unnoticed by the Earth people. When darkness wraps the Earth in a great, spinning shroud we hide our ships close to the cities, and glide through the silent streets in search of our young. You see, Jimmy, we must watch and protect the young of our race until sturdiness comes upon them, and they are ready for the Great Change.”

  For an instant there was a strange, humming sound deep inside Jimmy’s head, like the drowsy murmur of bees in a dew-drenched clover patch. Then the voice droned on. “The Earth people are frightened by our ships now, for their cruel wars have put a great fear of death in their hearts. They watch the skies with sharper eyes, and their minds have groped closer to the truth.

  “To the Earth people our ships are no longer the fireballs of mysterious legend, haunted will-o’-the-wisps, marsh flickerings and the even more illusive distortions of the sick in mind. It is a long bold step from fireballs to flying saucers, Jimmy. A day will come when the Earth people will be wise enough to put aside fear. Then we can show ourselves to them as we really are, and help them openly.”

  The voice seemed to take more complete possession of Jimmy’s thoughts then, growing louder and more eager, echoing through his mind with the persuasiveness of muted chimes.

  “Jimmy, close your eyes tight. We’re going to take you across wide gulfs of space to the bright and shining land of your birth.”

  Jimmy obeyed.

  It was a city, and yet it wasn’t like New York or Chicago or any of the other cities Jimmy had seen illustrations of in the newspapers and picture magazines.

  The buildings were white and domed and shining, and they seemed to tower straight up into the sky. There were streets, too, weaving in and out between the domes like rainbow-colored spider webs in a forest of mushrooms.

  * * * *

  There were no people in the city, but down the aerial streets shining objects swirled with the swift easy gliding of flat stones skimming an edge of running water.

  Then as Jimmy stared into the depths of the strange glow behind his eyelids the city dwindled and fell away, and he saw a huge circular disk looming in a wilderness of shadows. Straight toward the disk a shining object moved, bearing aloft on filaments of flame a much smaller object that struggled and mewed and reached out little white arms.

  Closer and closer the shining object came, until Jimmy could see that it was carrying a human infant that stared straight at Jimmy out of wide, dark eyes. But before he could get a really good look at the shining object it pierced the shadows and passed into the disk.

  There was a sudden, blinding burst of light, and the disk was gone.

  Jimmy opened his eyes.

  “You were once like that baby, Jimmy!” the voice said. “You were carried by your parents into a waiting ship, and then out across wide gulfs of space to Earth.

  “You see, Jimmy, our race was once entirely human. But as we grew to maturity we left the warm little worlds where our infancy was spent, and boldly sought the stars, shedding our humanness as sunlight sheds the dew, or a bright, soaring moth of the night its ugly pupa case.

  “We grew great and wise, Jimmy, but not quite wise enough to shed our human heritage of love and joy and heartbreak. In our childhood we must return to the scenes of our past, to take root again in familiar soil, to grow in power and wisdom slowly and sturdily, like a seed dropped back into the loam which nourished the great flowering mother plant.

  “Or like the eel of Earth’s seas, Jimmy, that must be spawned in the depths of the great cold ocean, and swim slowly back to the bright highlands and the shining rivers of Earth. Young eels do not resemble their parents, Jimmy. They’re white and thin and transparent and have to struggle hard to survive and grow up.

  “Jimmy, you were planted here by your parents to grow wise and strong. Deep in your mind you knew that we had come to seek you out, for we are all born human, and are bound one to another by that knowledge, and that secret trust.

  “You knew that we would watch over you and see that no harm would come to you. You called out to us, Jimmy, with all the strength of your mind and heart. Your Uncle Al was in danger and you sensed our nearness.

  “It was partly your knowledge that saved him, Jimmy. But it took courage too, and a willingness to believe that you were more than human, and armed with the great proud strength and wisdom of the Shining Ones.”

  The voice grew suddenly gentle, like a caressing wind.

  “You’re not old enough yet to go home, Jimmy! Or wise enough. We’ll take you home when the time comes. Now we just want to have a talk with Uncle Al, to find out how you’re getting along.”

  Jimmy looked down into the river and then up into the sky. Deep down under the dark, swirling water he could see life taking shape in a thousand forms. Caddis flies building bright, shining new nests, and dragonfly nymphs crawling up toward the sunlight, and pollywogs growing sturdy hindlimbs to conquer the land.

  But there were cottonmouths down there too, with death behind their fangs, and no love for the life that was crawling upward. When Jimmy looked up into the sky he could see all the blazing stars of space, with cottonmouths on every planet of every sun.

  Uncle Al was like a bright caddis fly building a fine new nest, thatched with kindness, denying himself bright little Mardi Gras pleasures so that Jimmy could go to school and grow wiser than Uncle Al. />
  “That’s right, Jimmy. You’re growing up―we can see that! Uncle Al says he told you to bide from the cottonmouths. But you were ready to give your life for your sister and Uncle Al.”

  “Shucks, it was nothing!” Jimmy heard himself protesting.

  “Uncle Al doesn’t think so. And neither do we!”

  * * * *

  A long silence while the river mists seemed to weave a bright cocoon of radiance about Jimmy clinging to the bank, and the great circular disk that had swallowed up Uncle Al.

  Then the voices began again. “No reason why Uncle Al shouldn’t have a little fun out of life, Jimmy. Gold’s easy to make and we’ll make some right now. A big lump of gold in Uncle Al’s hand won’t hurt him in any way.”

  “Whenever he gets any spending money he gives it away!” Jimmy gulped.

  “I know, Jimmy. But he’ll listen to you. Tell him you want to go to New Orleans, too!”

  Jimmy looked up quickly then. In his heart was something of the wonder he’d felt when he’d seen his first riverboat and waited for he knew not what. Something of the wonder that must have come to men seeking magic in the sky, the rainmakers of ancient tribes and of days long vanished.

  Only to Jimmy the wonder came now with a white burst of remembrance and recognition.

  It was as though he could sense something of himself in the two towering spheres that rose straight up out of the water behind the disk. Still and white and beautiful they were, like bubbles floating on a rainbow sea with all the stars of space behind them.

  Staring at them, Jimmy saw himself as he would be, and knew himself for what he was. It was not a glory to be long endured.

  “Now you must forget again, Jimmy! Forget as Uncle Al will forget―until we come for you. Be a little shantyboat boy! You are safe on the wide bosom of the Father of Waters. Your parents planted you in a rich and kindly loam, and in all the finite universes you will find no cosier nook, for life flows here with a diversity that is infinite and―Pigtail! She gets on your nerves at times, doesn’t she, Jimmy?”

  “She sure does,” Jimmy admitted.

  “Be patient with her, Jimmy. She’s the only human sister you’ll ever have on Earth.”